IT departments need a bigger role in digital transformation

Everyone agrees IT departments need to play a bigger role in the process of digital transformation. And by ‘everyone’, I mean both IT and non-IT executives.

Those are the results of a new and extensive survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit and SAP. The survey asked more than 800 senior executives from various industries, with more than half being IT leaders, about the process of digital transformation.

Key highlight of the report is that there’s a ‘distinct lack of strategic co-ordination around digital transformation’.

It was said that business departments (29 per cent of cases) are more likely to lead digital transformation initiatives than the IT function (22 per cent9.

Everyone agrees this should change, and that the IT department should play a more central role in the process.

“The fact that IT executives agree that their department should play a more active role in digital transformation shows that they do not lack the desire or ambition to do so,” said Pete Swabey, the editor of the report.

“A number of important responsibilities prevent IT from focusing entirely on digital innovation. Nevertheless, the limited level adoption of Agile and DevOps suggests a degree of inertia that few companies have the time to indulge in.”

Just under half of non-IT executives, 45 per cent of them, said their IT department changed how it operates, either fully or to some extent, in order to support the digital transformation efforts.